Noiseless Chatter Archive

Some of you may remember my original site, which was located at phil-reed.com. I’m not hyperlinking that because 1) it hasn’t been there for years and 2) it seems to intermittently become a porn site. It was…different. Like Noiseless Chatter in some ways, probably, but I was also blogging much more regularly about myself. I’d post writing and some other projects, but it was mainly a livejournal writ large. In short if you weren’t around for it, you didn’t miss much. There was one feature, though, that came together right at the end of that site’s life, way back in 2007: a podcast. (That’s a period-appropriate photo of in the header, by the way. Man, I look great when you can’t see me at all.) Only two episodes were produced, and I lost the files at some point since then. In my mind, they were great. I’d think back on them and genuinely wish I’d kept doing them. The concept, originally, was to have talented folks “perform” excerpts from novels. This proved pretty difficu...

  ALF Reviews: “Stairway to Heaven” (season 3, episode 2) I have no idea what this episode’s supposed to be about, but judging from the title I’m going to guess that Willie finally finds the sweet release of death, only for ALF to build a stairway to heaven and drag him back down to this miserable, tortured existence. It opens with an angle on the back yard that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before, and, as you can guess by now, I like it when the show does things like this. The reason is that it’s so easy to simply sit behind a camera and film a scene straight on, especially in a sitcom where there’s going to be more static dialogue than dynamic action. For a shot like this — unnecessary, unique, attention-grabbing — to exist, it’s because somebody, somewhere, decided that instead of just needing to shoot a scene, the scene needed to be shot  like this. That’s the kind of attention and care that I appreciate whenever I notice it…but, to be frank, I tend to notice it more in s...

At the end of last season we had “The Devil’s Grip,” an oddly quiet episode that felt strangely out of place when stacked up against the previous season finales of The Venture Bros. . This show typically likes to go out with a bang…whether that’s in the form of a wedding, the accidental deaths of its title characters, or all out war. “The Devil’s Grip,” by seeming contrast, went out with a firm handshake and some well wishes. It was, to be honest, odd. Perhaps even disappointing, as its place at the very end of the season made it feel like a weaker entry than it really was. Then again, after season four’s finale — the incredible “Operation P.R.O.M.” — there wasn’t really anything The Venture Bros. could do to top itself. Not until now, anyway, with “All This and Gargantua-2.” See, “The Devil’s Grip” was never intended as a season finale. It fell that way due to budget and time running out sooner than anticipated. No story concepts, as far as I saw, were leaked, but...

  ALF Reviews: “Stop in the Name of Love” (season 3, episode 1) Well, I’ll say this up front: for all the concern I had about season three sucking Melmackian anus, it sure opens well. (Much like Melmackian anus.) No, seriously. For those of you who don’t know or are tuning in late, folks ’round these parts have let me know that a pretty substantial drop-off in quality comes after season two. Being as I didn’t even like season two, that worried me. And while I’m by no means about to write off any worry about  ALF ‘s final 50 installments, it sure is nice to open this worrisome season with a mild chuckle, and not, say, a lump of cold poison. It begins with Willie and ALF at the table, serving themselves dinner. Kate is bringing out dishes and Lynn returns home shortly, so I’m pretty sure we can conclude from this that the Tanners have finally sold Brian to the gypsies. ALF is annoying Willie, which is nothing new, but what’s nice about it is the way in which ALF is being annoyin...